Raith Rovers are are looking to get their promotion bid back on track with victory over Alloa at Stark’s Park.
It is not solely about three points for boss Grant Murray and his players though, as they seek to put last week’s shattering 6-1 loss at Rangers to the back of their minds with a much improved performance in front of their own fans.
The Rovers manager revealed his squad have been itching to get back into action all week long after the Ibrox horror show and admitted the players feel they owe the fans a positive result.
“We do hurt after performances like that, and the Hearts game earlier this season,” he explained.
“The Queen of the South game was a difficult one because the least we should have taken from that game was a point.
“The way it ended up, getting it back to 3-3 and having the extra man not that that’s always an easy thing because as a club we’ve been down to 10 men and won in my time here – the minimum we should have taken that night was a point.
“So we need to get back to doing what’s right.
“Obviously that’s two games we’ve played and we’ve lost two games, so we want to get back to winning ways.
“I want a performance and I want the result. We want that every week.
“Every league game is a massive game and Saturday is no different.”
The pressure is mounting on Murray from some quarters, and Alloa will head to Kirkcaldy knowing that Rovers have failed to win any of their last four home fixtures.
Indeed, in three of those games Rovers shipped four goals, although Murray maintains his side have what it takes to stop that trend.
He continued: “We’ve got to perform day in day out, week in week out, and that’s what makes good teams, what makes consistent teams, and what gets levels of performances up.
“We’ve got to put pressure on ourselves week in week out and we know it will be a hard game this weekend.
“Alloa have come to Stark’s Park before and have made it difficult for us, but it’s up to us to be positive in the game.
“We want to be looking to go and win the game.
“We’ve been to Alloa before this season, we’ve kept a clean sheet and we’ve scored, so we’ve got to focus on that and get back to being hard to beat which we were against the likes of Falkirk, Livi, Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, Alloa.”
Rovers recorded a 1-0 victory at Alloa earlier this season, with an early Ryan Conroy goal enough to separate the sides in August.
At least one of Alloa’s players will be on familiar turf today, namely in-form ex-Raith striker Greig Spence who joined the Wasps in the summer, and Murray points to the fact that Rangers, Hibs and Hearts have all struggled to beat today’s visitors so far this season as proof that a difficult game lies in store.
“Alloa are probably in a position that they probably feel is false,” he concluded.
“We went there and it was a difficult game. There probably wasn’t a lot in it if I’m honest and we got the early goal which is big in this league.
“So they’ll come to Stark’s Park on the back of a defeat to try and rectify that.
“They are a side who will want to move from where they are, it’s as simple as that.”
Calum Elliot resumed training on Friday but is likely to miss the game with his foot injury, while fellow striker Christian Nade and longer-term absentees Kevin Cuthbert and Craig Barr similarly remain sidelined.
Defender Dougie Hill should be available for selection however, after missing last week’s game at Ibrox after tweaking his groin in the warm-up.